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20 Ways to Kill Engagement and Stop Those Pesky Blog Comments

Free Bonus: Hidden within this humorous post are pointers you should take to heart if you want more comments. Click here to download them.

The following takes place in an alternate universe.

It’s one where bloggers hate reader engagement and hate receiving comments, but in a cruel twist they cannot simply “turn off” their comments. Instead, they’re forced to use other means to discourage engagement…

Comments.

Ugh, am I right?

Just the other day, I received a comment from a female reader who told me she loved my blog and thought I was cute. She also said she was going to share my post with her 61.5 million Twitter followers.

Thanks, @taylorswift13, but no thanks. Who needs that kind of drivel?

Sure, you have your Copybloggers and Seth Godins who love receiving comments and would never, ever do anything to discourage them, but the Copybloggers and Godins of the world are the minority.

The rest of us? We hate comments. We hate them with every fiber of our being.

And, if you’re anything like me, you’ve debated more than once whether or not to delete your blog just so you wouldn’t have to deal with comments anymore.

Thankfully, there is a better way.

The following strategies are proven to minimize reader engagement and reduce blog comments.

1. Stop Email Subscriptions

So why, oh why, are you offering your readers free email updates? Why do you offer a newsletter?

It’s as if you want your readers to engage with you and leave you comments!

2. Be a Cipher, Wrapped in an Enigma, Smothered in Secret Sauce

Readers are more tempted to leave a comment if they feel as though they know the person behind the blog.

Solution?

Remove all photos of yourself from your blog. Make your “About” page as cold and impersonal as the DMV on a Monday morning.

Remove every ounce of “you” from your blog.

Be a robot. No one wants to leave comments to a robot.

3. Comment Redirect Plugin for First-Time Commenters

Look, mistakes happen.

Maybe the person leaving you a comment didn’t realize how awful comments were? Maybe they are new to the web and just don’t know any better?

By installing this comment redirect plugin by Yoast, you can redirect readers to a specific page after they’ve left you a comment for the first time.

And on this page you can tell them how you are incredibly disappointed in them.

You can tell them of the horrors of blog comments. You can threaten them with bodily harm. You can plead with them to never, ever leave you another comment.

Those of you who made the mistake of leaving me a comment in the past are undoubtedly familiar with the comment-redirect page I used to have:

This technique doesn’t help you prevent initial blog comments, but it’s great for preventing subsequent ones!

4. Force Users to Register for an Account

If you use Disqus or Livefyre, you have made leaving a comment slightly more difficult. Unless, of course, the reader already had a Disqus or Livefyre account, in which case you’ve done nothing to impede them!

No, you need to think bigger.

You need to make your readers register for an account they cannot use anywhere else online. You need to make them register for an account on your blog in order to comment!

Thankfully, WordPress makes this easy.

In your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings and choose Discussion.

Forcing readers to register before commenting is one lil’ checkbox away.

5. Use Facebook-Only Comments

An alternate approach is to implement Facebook commenting technology for your blog.

For the rare users not on Facebook, you will have immediately eliminated the possibility of their commenting on your blog. Let’s face it: witty as your blog may be, if they haven’t joined Facebook yet they’re not going to start now just so they can leave you a comment.

And a good chunk of the readers already on Facebook will leave without commenting due to privacy concerns.

Who wants to have their Facebook profile (and all the personal info attached to it) visible on a random blog for all to see?

“Big brother,” “NSA” and all that jazz, right?

It’s not as effective as forcing them to register for an account, but allowing Facebook comments only could do a nice job minimizing the comments you receive.

6. Your Design Should Discourage Comments

Neil Patel of QuickSprout notes how the website for Forbes does a poor job of encouraging comments.

How does Forbes accomplish this desirable feat?

The design of Forbes is busy. Also, the comment stream is hidden. Readers need to click a link in order to read existing comments or leave one of their own.

How can we use Forbes’ genius blueprint for our own blogs?

Make your design as cluttered as possible. Add as many items as you can think of to your sidebar, then add ten more things.

Make your “leave a comment” link hard to find. In fact, why even have it? Force readers to scroll to the bottom of your post to reach your comment section.

If readers want to leave you a comment, make them jump through hoops. Make them earn it.

7. No Call to Action

Ever come across a blog with a “call to action” at the end of every post?

This call to action may ask the reader to subscribe to a mailing list, follow the blogger on social media, or even — as hard as it is to believe — encourage discussion by writing something like, “Okay…Your Turn.”

Yeah, don’t do any of these things.

If you must have a call to action, at least have a good call to action at the end of your posts. A few examples:

Go away now

Isn’t it past your bedtime? Go get some sleep

Aren’t there leftover brownies in the kitchen? Close the browser and go see

8. Never Respond to Comments

If the unthinkable happens and someone leaves you a comment, please, whatever you do, don’t respond to the comment.

Don’t tell them “thanks” or “I appreciate it,” even if you’re being sarcastic. Sarcasm doesn’t show well online.

No, the best thing you can do is ignore the comment.

Don’t respond.

Don’t get drawn into the commenter’s unholy game of engagement.

They want you to respond. They want to claim you as a victim.

Don’t let them!

Want to be scared straight? Check out Adrienne Smith’s blog and see what happens when you engage with readers and respond to every comment.

Poor Adrienne is drowning in comments.

Don’t let this happen to you.

9. Respond to Comments in Condescending Tone

An alternate approach is to respond to comments in a condescending, how-dare-you-question-me tone.

Have you ever come across a blog whose owner is snarky to the comments left to him or her?

Their responses are pompous, snide and ego-driven.

They actually make readers feel bad for leaving them a comment.

This is how you do it, ladies and gentlemen.

10. Don’t Mention Others in Your Posts

Linking to and mentioning others within your posts is a blogging no-no.

Here is how it will play out:

Person is pinged (notified) their content has been linked to.

Person visits the post where they are mentioned.

Person, due to guilt or feelings of social obligation, leaves you a comment, thanking you for the mention.

Does this sound fun?

Don’t do this.

11. Make Social Sharing Impossible

In his post on blog commenting, Ian Cleary of Razor Social explains how social shares lead to more visitors to your content, which can lead to comments and, yes, more social shares.

In other words, social sharing can lead to an infinite loop of comment torment.

To discourage this loop from starting, hide all social sharing icons on your blog.

Also, consider including an expletive in the title of all your posts. This will eliminate a good number of readers from ever wanting to share your content.

Long titles are also effective.

In 1999, musician Fiona Apple gave the following title to her sophomore album:

When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He’ll Win the Whole Thing ‘fore He Enters the Ring There’s No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might so When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won’t Matter, Cuz You’ll Know That You’re Right”

It worked. No one bought the album.

12. Post More Often

On average, the less time between published posts, the fewer comments you receive. Jon Morrow says a big reason for this is readers become overwhelmed when you publish frequently, and this results in decreased reader engagement.

Jackpot!

If you’re currently publishing posts once a week, start publishing daily. If you publish daily, start posting hourly. If you already publish hourly, begin writing new posts every minute.

The resulting disengagement from your readers will be as big as the smile on your face!

13. Never, Ever Ask Questions

One time, like an idiot, I asked a question in a blog post I wrote.

I meant it to be a rhetorical question, but sure enough some readers thought I was asking for an answer. So, they left me comments.

“Helpful” comments, which are the worst kind.

If you want to kill engagement, refrain from asking your readers any type of question.

14. Ask Readers Not to Leave Comments

This one sounds like common sense, but you would be surprised.

In a post on Social Media Examiner, Charlene Kingston says asking readers at the end of your post to leave a comment is a great way to receive comments.

Obviously, Charlene was joking with the Social Media Examiner readers. But if you flip her advice around, it’s a great strategy for discouraging comments.

At the end of your posts, beg your readers not to leave you comments…

Plead with them.

Bribe them, if necessary.

15. Disable Email Notifications

Sometimes, bad things happen.

Sometimes you get a flat tire, sometimes all your hair falls out in the middle of the night, and sometimes someone leaves you a blog comment.

Don’t make the problem worse by allowing the reader to receive email notifications if, gasp, someone else leaves a comment or replies to their comment.

All this will do is encourage the reader to return to your blog. And guess what? They very well may leave you another comment!

Okay, your turn…

…to leave.

[avatar email=”kevinjduncan@gmail.com” size=”125″]About Kevin J. Duncan
I use my very particular set of skills to help people become the best bloggers they can be. I serve a great God, love a great wife, and create things that are sometimes great. Ready to be a better blogger? Subscribe to my list.

Originally published on July 22, 2014. It’s been updated.

Reader Interactions

Comments

Kevin,
Interesting and entertaining post, as always. As a commenter Captchas are probably the one thing that makes me not want to comment the most. Facebook only comments also pretty much guarantee that I won’t comment.

Thanks for the comment. I’m glad you found it interesting and entertaining!

There are a few blogs I frequent which use a fairly-friendly Captcha plugin, but blogs using those Captchas I can’t make heads or tails of… no thanks. Some of them, I swear, look as though they’re written in a dead language.

Yeah, I’m the same way with Facebook-only comments. My Facebook profile is for friends and family. It’s not to be shared with every random person who comes across a blog’s comment section! But, that’s just me.

My blog is less than a year old. About two months into my blogging journey, my blog got slammed with spam comments. I tried Akismet, but that only put the comments in the trash for me to sort. I installed a Captcha plug-in and the comments stopped!

The problem is, I don’t know if it’s reader friendly or if it kills comments. So I have considered taking it off.

How can I know if my Captcha plug in is user friendly or if I need to ditch it?

(BTW, I have the Captcha set to only show up if Akismet marks the comment as spam.)

Great blog, I may have to subscribe and be one of those annoying people you mentioned 🙂

Try adding a honeypot spam plugin. I had very little luck with Akismet (found out it was actually “eating” legitimate comments after a few regular readers reported it — didn’t even put them in the spam folder).

I went from hundreds of spam comments across my sites every day to just a few per month when I replaced Akismet with one called Anti-spam. These kinds of plugins stop bots from even submitting anything, so if you couple it with Akismet they’ll never get to your spam folder.

The only spam you’ll get is spam manually submitted by a person (more often than not just an overzealous marketer). The difference was huge for me. Might be worth trying in your case. Plus, it eliminated my need for captchas altogether.

The one thing I don’t do is send them to a thank you page and I’ll tell you why. I read the post before I load it up to be shared on social media. So I’m leaving you this comment and if this was my first one then it would immediately take me to thank you page. Great, terrific but now I can’t share the awesome post I just read. Now I know the purpose of that page is to make them feel welcome but what they’ve actually done is discouraged me from going back through the blog to find the post I was on to share it. Trust me, I won’t take the time.

Of course I also can’t stand captcha either but I ran across a reader not long ago and she was upset that she didn’t have any comments. I told her that she had it set that people had to log into her blog in order to comment and people just aren’t going to do that. Well she didn’t set up the blog, her “web” guy did. He did that to cut down on spam and I told her oh he cut down on ALL comments thank you very much. So with some convincing he put the comment box up but put captcha code on it and I think she would just be overwhelmed with the amount of spam that she’ll get and just freak out. That’s why I think it’s important for people to understand how to do things on their own blogs.

Okay, sorry for getting off on that but great job on the post and thanks for that mention. That’s too funny but I can’t seriously be the only person that responds to all their comments. I definitely know there are some people who get so many more then me so I feel like a little fish in the huge sea at times. I do think it’s important though to recognize the people who genuinely took the time and left you a great comment. How can you ignore them right!

That’s a very reasonable take regarding the comment redirect tactic. I can certainly see how some would have the same impression as you. I use it because I remember thinking so positively about it when I saw it for the first time.

I commented on a blog (I forget whose it was) for the first time, and after posting I was redirected to a thank you page. I thought it was a very neat touch. I liked it. So, I decided to implement it on my own blog!

It would be interesting to see how others react to them. I wonder if there is a consensus, or if people would be split 50/50?

Just interesting to think about!

So her “web” guy turned “must register to comment” on just so he wouldn’t have to deal with spam? Nice. Glad you were able to help her out and set him straight.

I’m sure you aren’t the only one, Adrienne. Haha. But, you do appear to be people’s go-to example for “blogger who always responds to comments!” 🙂 I think Don Purdum also does a great job at it, and I’m trying my best, too.

Glad you’re such a big fan of this one. My goal is to “get better” with each post. I’m not sure I meet the goal each week, but I do appear to be trending upward. 🙂

Yes, I notice this occasionally with Disqus, too. I’ll have to refresh the page in order to see the comments. Very irksome. I’ve never tried on a smartphone. I’m sure it’s a headache!

Oh! I bet you’re right. It’s all part of the plan to discourage comments! Those sneaky devils.

Oh yes, big CommentLuv fan here, too. Sometimes it feels as though I’m the only one using the free version, but (correct me if I’m wrong) you aren’t using the premium version either, right? I may splurge one day, but right now the extra features aren’t worth the cost for me.

Caching still not finished? Good grief. Annoying isn’t it? At least you manually emptied the cache and I’ll be able to read and comment tomorrow. 🙂

Oh, you’re welcome! In your defense, I do tend to link to you quite a lot. Haha. 🙂

So you have the premium version? I guess I assumed you used the free version because you don’t have the Twitter username field (like I see on a lot of blogs) on Enchanted Marketing. I guess maybe I am the only one using the free version.

I’m glad you got such a big kick out of this one. I certainly had a lot of fun writing it. You can see glimpses of my “humor/satire writer” past come out in many of my posts, but I think you can really see it in this one.

So the “bad design” points were your favorite? I liked those, too. My favorite, I think, was the alternate “call to action” ideas. The very notion of telling readers to go away cracks me up. 🙂

Thanks for sharing, Don, and all the great thoughts and compliments while doing so. I really appreciate it.

I’ve very impressed. Reading a post like this and seeing how it all flows and works makes me want to be more creative with alot more posts that I write. Great take away message from the post however.

Like Don, you had me laughing through the whole thing when I figured out where you were going with it. Joking aside though, alot of people actually do some of these things mentioned. I remember reading a post over the weekend and I wanted to comment on it because it was really good, and I go to comment and I see that I had to register to actually comment. That put me off and I just left the page.

You won’t even believe how many blog posts I visit that still have captcha on there. That thing is nearly impossible to crack. Safe to say, those bloggers did a top notch job in discouraging me from engaging with them and leaving comments.

Why thank you! It’s nice to know I’ve inspired you to try being more creative in your own writing (especially since you’re a great writer yourself). Thanks for the compliment.

Haha. Glad it cracked you up! I aim to entertain while I educate, so hopefully in this post I pulled it off.

I’ve never commented on a blog which required me to register. It just doesn’t make sense why a blogger would request such a thing. I don’t understand it.

Now, I get the idea of having comments turned off. Some bloggers do this and have valid reasons for doing so. But registering? You’re essentially saying “I don’t want you to comment.” So, why not just turn comments off? It’s easier.

Glad you enjoyed the post, Andrew. Thanks for commenting and sharing with your followers!

Hi Kevin
You described the importance of commenting as way of readers engagement in an interesting way.
At the beginning I thought you mean to really help readers discourage comments at their blog. But the way you moved on with more than several very important points how people fail to ignite readers engagement it dawned upon me this post actually means to show how important is to affect response of visitors and increase readers engagement.
Thanks a lot for sharing this very valuable post and especially the list of DOs at the end of the post.

There is lot on the subject – how to push your readers to comment, you seem to have decided to pick up a completely opposite topic. Well i believe one should not discourage comments because of two prime reasons…

A. Long tail key words get discovered through comments.
B. Comments build authority of a blog.

well for some reason if someone has decided to discourage comments, then the best idea you rightly mentioned is use strong capcha… good to drive anyone crazy…LOL.

Well, I wasn’t really suggesting comments were bad. I was using humor (and exaggeration) to make my points. The intentional bad advice gives tips for bloggers on what NOT to do, and conversely what they SHOULD be doing to encourage comments. 🙂

Ha – an interesting take on this Kevin, thanks for featuring me here. I get very frustrated with Disqus especially as in the past it’s given me different options for logging in, and then not let me log-in. At that point I’ve forgotten my comment. Good stuff! 🙂

All good now, but I was a silly willy in the past. Years ago I didn’t respond much to comments. Then, I responded with 1 or 2 lines, or a simple Thanks, and that wasn’t the way to go either. I’ve learned my lesson for good.

I ask for comments by asking a few questions at the end of posts. I respond to comments with 8 hours or so on most days, usually quicker than that.

Hey, as for the adding personality point – which you do an awesome job of, by the way – you know how I do it over on Blogging From Paradise. I am all over my blog, on my sidebar, on my About Me page, and I heard the neatest thing in response to this approach recently.

A first time visitor commented – yep, I got ’em to do it, sorry 😉 – that even though they just arrived, they felt like they’ve known me for a long time after reading my About Me page. That’s the goal.

Kevin, I feel the same way here. We’ve chatted a few times in like, 2 weeks, and I feel like I’ve known you for years. Your engaging style and more than anything, genuine, authentic, fun personality just oozes through your entire blog, making your posts a magnet to comments, and quality comments at that.

Past is the past, but as you said you do a good job now of responding to comments. And you’re not just responding with a line or two, you’re leaving epic responses!

Thanks re: “adding personality.” You definitely do a good job of it, too. And just not on your blog, you do a great job of adding your personality in your comments, too. You comment the same way you write posts, which is a great thing. When someone is reading your comment, it’s clear to them they are reading Ryan’s comment!

Agreed! It’s only been a couple weeks, but you definitely feel like a bloggers I’ve known for years. And that’s good! That’s how all bloggers should be, right? 🙂

Thank you for the kind, complimentary words. They mean a lot!

I’ll be looking for your Tweets so I can thank you properly on Twitter! Thanks again, Ryan. I’ll be heading over to comment on your latest post later today.

Hey Kevin,
This is my first visit to your blog and I must say that this post immediately caught my attention. Every one writes about how to attract more and more comments but don’t pay attention to the little details that kills the engagement and the reader leaves without kicking of the conversation.
I loved your post and almost all the points you made were superb.
However using Captcha would be important to avoid spam comments!
What do you say?

Welcome to the blog! Thank you for visiting, reading, and taking the time to comment.

Thanks, I’m glad the post caught your attention. You’re right, before readers will want to leave you a comment, they need to feel engaged with you and your blog. If they’re not engaged, they’re probably not going to comment!

Regarding Captcha: Yes, Captcha is really good for preventing spam comments. And for what it’s worth, I notice the Captcha plugin you use on your blog is one of the GOOD kind of Captcha plugins. It’s easy to read and use.

Many blogs have user-unfriendly Captchas, though. And I believe they would be far better off switching to a nicer one like you use, or ditching Captcha altogether.

In its place, you could use something like the Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin for WordPress. It forces users to click a checkbox in order to prove they’re human. No words to interpet, no letters to type. Just click a checkbox and you’re good to go. It’s what I use, and I’ve found it to be pretty successful at preventing spam.

In other words, there are alternatives to Captcha out there. But again, I wouldn’t worry if I were you. Your Captcha is fine. Nice and simple. 🙂

Hey Kevin,
I know about GASP and I have used it a lot on my sites. But some time back, it was unable to detect spam comments. I was getting at least 50-100 spam comments on my site daily which was quite irritating so I was forced to remove it from my site and replace it with Captcha plugin.

I don’t know if the plugin was updated and every issue was solved. If that’s the case, I would love to install the plugin back on my site.

If its working perfectly on your blog, I don’t a reason why it shouldn’t work on my blog as well. Will give it a try once again and see how it goes!

That’s strange you had such a bad experience with GASP. Fifty to one hundred spam comments daily?? Wow.

My hunch is, as you suggested, the plugin may have been out of date. I’ve never received more than a handful spam comments in a single day. Now, part of this is likely due to how new my site is (7 or 8 weeks), but I like to think GASP has a lot to do with it, too.

If you decide to give GASP a try again, I’m interesting in knowing your experience this second time around. Keep me posted?

I had the same issue with GASP that Arbaz had. I’d used it for quite some time without any problem. Then suddenly I was seeing a huge amount of spam comments getting through just like Arbaz was. I saw several reports on the support forum and several blog posts from people having the same sudden issue. But the dev kept insisting nothing was wrong because he hadn’t heard enough complaints. So I ditched them. And while I can’t speak for Arbaz, nothing was out of date on my blog when that started happening.

This blog post made me smile – thanks for entertaining AND educating me!

Of all your suggestions, I think engaging with commenters is most effective. Not only does it encourage people to come back and comment again. It also acts as social proof. New visitors are more likely to comment if they see a lively discussion.

I think you’re doing a fantastic job of engaging the community here. I love the way the comments offer even more value on top of your original post.

Keep it up!
Sally
PS: You’re not the only one using the free version of Comment Luv – I am too!

Awesome! I’m glad the post made you smile. Also glad it educated you while entertaining you!

You may be right. Engaging with commenters could be the most effective tip for receiving comments. Most readers who leave you comments aren’t “one and done” commenters, after all. In my last post, I have 53 comments. Some of those are me, of course, but all except a small handful are comments from readers who previously left me comments. And, I do believe a big reason they came back to comment is because they felt welcomed after I responded to their previous comment. 🙂

Thanks! I do try to further the content within the comments I write. I’m not always successful, but I try. 🙂

I agree with all of your points and I have to say that Capthca is a quick way to keep me from commenting on someones blog. I have 20/ 20 vision and sometimes I still can’t understand what they want me to type.

I don’t use the comment redirect but that is something I may look into. That is a good way to lower your bounce rates and guide them to other landing pages on your site etc.

Also, the cluttered up pages on some sites are a huge distraction. For me it lets me know there focus is on money and not the content. If things are flashing all over and so on, I can’t focus on the content and end up leaving. I’m not apposed to ads as long as they are tastefully done.

If you’re considering the redirect plugin, do read Adrienne’s thoughts in her comment above. Some people, like me, appreciate the redirect after commenting for the first time. Adrienne says she’s not a fan. Hard to tell if she’s in the majority or minority, but something to consider!

Right, ads are okay if they’re tastefully done and do not overrun a site. Otherwise, no… I’ll take my business elsewhere, thanks.

Thank you for stopping on by after reading and commenting on Enstine’s wonderful blog! Good to see you here.

Oh yes, I’ve noticed the loading issues with some blogs using Disqus, too. I’ll have to reload, or refresh the entire page. It’s not a problem on all Disqus sites (Unveiltheweb.com seems fine), but I have noticed the problem on others.

Good point! I think many of us are far more likely to comment on blogs where we see the owner is active in the comment section. We know he/she will read our comment and possibly answer. But if it’s clear the blog owner doesn’t care, why bother?

I guess Enstine was right after all – you surely have a unique way of writing and it gets right across to the readers – great going!

You are so right about comments, often times people have a love-hate relationship with them. Speaking of myself, I find it hard to cope with them when they come in huge numbers, or perhaps because I had CommentLuv Premium (presently removed as I am trying and testing a few things), but they are ONE reason why my blog is where it is and of course, the social media too.

I think leaving heartfelt and meaningful comments gets across to any blogger, and they are quick to relate. That’s the only way one connects to each other and builds relationships. I’ve never known any other way, and this started right from the time I started blogging when I was on a blogger platform, and then switched to WordPress – and there was no looking back. 🙂

Gone are the days of captcha and those who still use them, surely aren’t going to get a lot of comments. Because of the short time span people have, during which they also have to leave a comment, if they wish to, one needs to make it all easy for them.

Thank you! It’s nice to hear from people who like my style of writing and the way I try to grab the attention of my readers. 🙂

I find it interesting you had CommentLuv Premium, but have it currently disabled. You don’t find many bloggers who had it, then removed it. 🙂

Oh yes, I imagine comments would definitely be a love-hate thing if you were a blogger who received LOTS of them. Some blogs receive hundreds for every post. Within fifteen minutes of publishing, they’ll have several dozen comments.

How on earth do you keep up with this kind of number? Beats me! Haha. I hope to one day become popular so I can experience it. It seems like the good kind of problem to have. 🙂

I appreciate your comment on Enstine’s feature of me. Very kind of you. And thank you so much for stopping by to visit me here.

Facebook and Disqus comments only. What the heck is that all about exactly? That’s like taking a pee in the cornflakes. You only realise the full horror when you munch your way through. I know, horrible metaphor, but I hate those particular systems for holding readers and would be commentators to ransom. One of my favourite sports related websites had the comments changed from a local standard system (which required a free registration) to Facebook, in so doing, it totally lost the character of those gents and ladies who made that site what it was.

Disqus is harmless on the surface but it adds yet another password barrier and wants to hijack one of the most valuable things on the site, namely the comments.

The only alternative I like to all these “systems” is a multi-tabbed comment box at the bottom of some blogs which allows one of these extra flavours along side the original blog’s comments (which don’t disappear mysteriously).

You know, of all the points I made in this post, I never would have guessed the “Facebook only” one would have the most “I agrees!” But it and the Captcha one seem to be the ones universally loathed, based on the comments here.

I think my main beef with you-must-register accounts is I’m tired of keeping up with multiple accounts. All of us have so many usernames and passwords to keep track of as it is. And you can’t use the same password over and over, because that’s dangerous. And you can’t write the passwords down, because that’s dangerous, too.

(I know people do use the same over and over, and do write them down, but you get my point.)

So whenever I am asked to create any new account, I’m hesitant. Why? Because this website is asking me to make a new obligation.

“Here, Kevin…here is ANOTHER USERNAME AND PASSWORD you have to memorize.”

I’ll do it, if I have to do it. But just to leave a comment? No, I don’t have to leave a comment. So unless I already have an account, I’m not going to bother.

Disclosure: I do have a Disqus account, because so many blogs I read use it. But the others? Well, it’s going to need to be a very special website to get me to register. Very special!

Oh, I loved how you wrote this. Definitely an entertaining way to start my morning 🙂

Being personal on a blog is definitely the way to go to encourage more comments. People like to know that they are dealing with a person and not a robot. I think the more that you ask questions, and then respond and thank them for doing so….the more interaction you will receive.

These people are also more likely to share your content too, which means more readers and more comments etc. It’s a snowball that’s for sure!

I’m glad you liked the post and found it entertaining! Music to my ears.

Exactly. Most people want to know the person behind the blog. The cold, distant, unrelatable act only works if you’re super popular and you want readers to look up to you like a higher being of sorts.

Personally, I don’t care for such bloggers. The popular bloggers I enjoy are almost-always people I feel I can relate to. They have a story which connects with me. They make it clear they’ve been where we are now. And they’re gracious. Humble. Good people.

Hi Kevin; love the tongue in cheap way you presented this post. As a blind blogger the one that gets me the most is captchas. I don’t mind them, but there are some that don’t offer a audio or non video option for solving the puzzle. I am still waiting for someone to get the word to the people at Reddit that they need a non video option for theirs. or at least they could fix it where every action doesn’t require a security question. I like comment luv and the default one on blogger sites. I don’t mind discuss because I am a member but i don’t care for live fire and won’t leave a comment there. another problem with discuss is that when you are trying to reply to a previous comment it is difficult to find all the text you entered the first time. Making it easy to read a comment thread and remind yourself of what each other has said surely will lead to more involved comment exchanges which is good I think? and as for visiting the post of a commenter i am here because you left one on a guest post of mine at harleena singh’s site. I loved the post. You showed great style with the writing of it. looking forward to your future articles, Max

Well, you see, the problem with that is there already are Captcha systems out there nearly impossible for normal people to judge! Haha.

I think the only way I could create a more difficult Captcha system than the ones currently in existence is to have a Captcha that asks: “What number am I thinking of?” If you don’t guess the number, you can’t comment. 😀

Being personal on a blog is definitely the way to go to encourage more comments. People like to know that they are dealing with a person and not a robot. I think the more that you ask questions, and then respond and thank them for doing so….the more interaction you will receive.

These people are also more likely to share your content too, which means more readers and more comments etc. It’s a snowball that’s for sure!

Welcome to my blog! So nice of you to come over and visit after reading Enstine’s feature on me.

Absolutely. Be personal, ask your readers questions, and — most importantly — respond to them and thank them are awesome ways to increase engagement with your readers! It takes time, but it’s so worth it.

The time is worth it because, as you said, people who feel engaged with your blog are more likely to share your content with others! More readers, more comments… snowball effect!

You had me very worried, Kevin. I’ve just had my eyes tested last week and the power has gone up but surely I was reading right. 🙂 Then I thought, stick with it, Kevin is taking us somewhere. Brilliant!

I’m glad you brought up Discus and Livefyre and those awful Facebook comment systems. I’ve had a Discus account for sometime and am okay with it and set up a Livefyre account since some of my colleagues use it and their blogs are comment worthy but Facebook? No way! I’ll read a post but won’t bother to comment. Your observations about it and reader reaction is on the mark.

There is another system out there, cannot remember its name to save my life which gives you all sorts of options including WordPress and still does not allow you to leave a comment. As Harleena pointed out in her comment, people don’t have long attention spans and the more time it takes me to try and leave a comment, the less likely I am going to rewrite it. Better to leave such gymnastics for the Olympians and Glasgow 2014 gymnasts. 🙂

I’m glad you stuck with it and made it through the post! Haha. Thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed it.

Yeah, I’m just not a fan of Facebook-only comments on blogs. I’m not sure where the trend started, but I’m just not a fan of it for the reasons I stated in the post. But another reasons is I’m not a fan of “putting all my eggs in one basket.” I’m limiting myself if I only let Facebook users leave me comments.

Also, pretty disgusted with Disqus – as others have said, they take you through all kinds of hoops, and may or may not let you comment, anyway. And neither Disqus nor Livefyre actually “keep me logged in”! No idea how often they automatically sign you out for lack of activity, but it sure is irritating.

This was a fun post, Kevin. Thanks especially for the “advance warning” that it was entirely tongue-in-cheek!

Welcome to the blog! Thanks for commenting. It’s always nice to have new readers. 🙂

So another vote down for Facebook-only comments! I should be keeping a tally! I’ve never had trouble with Disqus logging me out (I do have an account, but only because so many blogs I read were using it), but it doesn’t surprise me others have the problem.

The Disqus problem I face most often is the message saying Disqus is taking a while, and I may need to refresh. Gosh, lots of help there, Disqus. Appreciate it.

Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it, Karen. I wish you’d left a blog address so I could visit and leave you a comment of my own! Hope to see you again.

Hey Kevin,
I’m back to town 😉 Thanks for keeping me company while I was away struggling and fighting viruses on my server. I got them kicked out 😉

This post is a piece of entertainer man. I was smiling as I read through the points. At one moment, before I got to the end, I thought reversing these points will make a very busy and engaging post. That’s just what you pointed out at the end.

You know, I love point 3. That makes me want to see the disappointment on someone’s face after typing a long engaging comment, expecting to be welcomed by a friendly ‘thank you’ message 😉

“Huh? are you kidding me? I just dropped a great comment”

If someone lacks post ideas, this will be perfect idea to reserve your point and come up with a hot blog post 😉

You’re welcome. It was fun writing back and forth a little bit the past few days. Congrats on taking care of those viruses!

I’m glad you enjoyed the post and found it entertaining! I thought of the idea for this post several weeks ago. Originally, my plan was to hopefully write it for a big blog. But I realized no big, popular blog was going to publish something as “out there” as this one. There was only one blog which would accept such an odd thing, and it was this one. 🙂

Point #3 was my favorite as well. Creating the fake screen shot cracked me up. I kept thinking, “My readers are either going to find this hilarious, or they are going to think I’ve lost my mind.”

What a wonderful post Kevin, found you at Blog formatting, the 2 that stood out for me were facebook comments, I would add google comments too for all those people who insist on using blogger for their blogs and not adding you twitter handle so I can tweet you and then when I try there are no social media buttons on your blog- keep up the great entertaining education
With Gratitude

Welcome to my blog! You are one of several visitors Delia’s Blog Formatting has sent my way. I should send her a thank-you card. 🙂

Thanks! Yes, Google-only comments aren’t discussed as much as Disqus and Facebook, but you’re right. Not everyone has a Google account. So if those are the only comments you accept, you’re losing some potentially great comments from readers!

And yes, it’s irksome to me, too, when I find a blogger I want to connect with on social media, but they’ve made finding them on Twitter (or wherever) difficult.

Not every blogger is on Google+ and not every blogger has a Facebook page they want to share, but at this point isn’t every blogger on Twitter? (And if not, shouldn’t they be?) So if you’re on Twitter, don’t make readers have to search for you. Give them an easy Twitter button! 🙂

You pleasantly surprised me (as a first time visitor). At a point, I told myself: ‘I’m going to leave this guy a comment whether he likes it or not – why didn’t he just disable the whole damn sh*t?!’

Then I saw the first comment redirection screen shot…that was positively convincing and then, the post frequency cracked me up. If one was posting hourly, he/she should try every minute? I was going to break your skull at that point!

However, all things have ended well now and I am still leaving a comment anyway. This post certainly made my day and I seriously believe I’ll work up on where I’m lagging behind in the days to come.

Haha. Glad you picked up on the humor of the post and where I was going with it. To my surprise (although, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised), some readers didn’t understand I was being funny in this post. I wanted to educate by giving OPPOSITE advice. 🙂

Appreciate the kind words. Hope you have a wonderful day, and I hope you’ll return.

(lol) LOVE your creativity. That’s what I call thinking out of the box!

Made me smile anyway. 🙂

I can totally related to number 4. So many times I’ve wanted to leave a comment after reading an awesome post, but then I see the author is using Disqus and instantly, I lose the desire to share my thoughts. I really don’t understand why people use it. The comment system that comes with WordPress works just fine in my honest opinion.

And Mr Risley is spot on! I do a mixture of instructional posts and opinion posts at The Strategic Blogger. Never really thought about it before, but now you mention it, my opinion posts get double, even triple the number of comments compared to the step by step tutorials.

Thanks! I’m glad you liked it. I do like to think outside the box when I write. Of course, with this one, I wasn’t just outside the box. I was so far away from the box I couldn’t see the box anymore. Haha. But I’m glad people enjoyed it. 🙂

Same here. I’m a fan of the basic comment system offered by WordPress. There are plugins available to enhance it, sure, but keeping it as simple as possible is my preference. Don’t make it hard for people to leave you precious comments!

Well, Well, Well Kevin……I am totally spellbound. Your material has swept me off of my feet. Though I happen to stumble on your blog by accident but I feel it’s a serendipity that I did so. The way you have written it feels like the audiences like me are the passengers and you are the one who is behind the wheel. You take them on such a beautiful road that with each new sentence it seems as if we all are witnessing a moment of great importance. I am a total greenhorn when it comes to this blogging field and I am a co-author at Gossipmania.in. Nothing would please me more than you visiting my blog and dropping in your valuable comments. Keep up this brilliant work and do what you gotta do. May God be with you and Best of Luck.

I do believe you are the first reader to write “serendipity” in a comment! Haha. Thank you very much for the kind thoughts. I do try to take my readers on a journey when I write. I want to entertain them as much as educate them. Sometimes I’m able to do this quite successfully. Sometimes, not so much. 🙂

So you’re new to blogging? Well, let me welcome you! I’ll have to visit your site sometime soon.

Hope you have great success with it! Thanks again for your comment, Sanjay. Have a wonderful day!

this will happens to every blogger .when ever we post articles in our blog usually visitors reads our blog and comment on our post,some bloggers will comment non relating topic ,ugly messages avoid those we should give them a permission to keep post their comments on ou blog.by that we can avoid those type of comments .every blogger should take of comments.your article is helpful to all the bloggers,thank you for your post.

You left out the number one way to disengage. Don’t allow comments!
I love your approach here. If I get it right, you’re encouraging us to do the opposite of each rule. Isn’t it ironic that some blogs don’t even allow comments?
Do you know what reasoning is used to blog without allowing comments? I’m not sure I can think of a great reason.

Thank you! Yes, you got it. Doing the opposite of everything you read here is what bloggers should be doing. I thought this would be an entertaining way of making my points. 🙂

Agreed. And the thing is… more and more blogs have started disabling comments. Copyblogger stopped it earlier this year. And Chris Brogan turned off comments only days ago.

As for a reason, in both the instances above they say it was to due to spam. In Copyblogger’s case, they say only 4% of the comments they received in their 8 years actually made it onto the site. The other 96% were spam. Crazy!

Brogan mentioned “spam” as a big reason, too.

I guess, in theory, if your site is as big and popular as theirs, and you receive SO MANY SPAM COMMENTS it takes serious time and manpower to weed through them all (time you could spend producing more content), a “no comments” policy might make sense.

Both Copyblogger and Brogan encourage interaction on social media, so it’s not like they want zero engagement with readers. That’s good, at least. But yeah, I have a hard time imagining a scenario where I wouldn’t want comments on my blog. They’re too fun!

I HATE Facebook only comments. I could tolerate Google+ only (just a little) but damn, those annoying hard to find links just to be able to comment is definitely the main thing that keeps me away.

There are those security plugins as well that basically scraps your comment just because you are on a public network connection…so that 300 word comment just went poof. No way am I going to do that again after that happens!

I like this post, it is something that I did on Carol Tice’s blog a few years back – it surely brings in a twist and “the departure from my usual straightforward tone” as she puts in.

I was guilty of some of these issues and have so far fixed quite a few of them. We now have our picture and inputs in the about us page. Am also working hard on our email list, something that I kept planning on but never really implemented properly.

Comment redirect – that is yet another thing to do. We did a re-direct for the campaigns we do on GuestCrew but haven’t setup the comment redirect yet.

I wish people will just stop forcing for registration – it makes commenting really difficult. Along with facebook comments, I also don’t like “disqus” and other commenting tools – the natural commenting system of wordpress along with CommentLuv is great already!

It is good that I haven’t seen any captcha’s recently, perhaps things are improving.

PS.
“Travel to the magical place called “elsewhere””
Seriously, I guess I can never beat you in Humor Content! You are the best.

It’s my first time here at your site and this is really a very hilarious post. You had me rolling on the floor laughing especially with number 2!

But seriously though, I hate Facebook comments with every fiber of my being, and I also would not comment if there’s captcha, because I suck at math. I am guilty of using disqus before with my previous blog but there were issues with disqus that made me say goodbye to it a long time ago.

I am so glad I saw you at Jon Morrow’s and followed you til I get here.

Looking forward to learning more awesome advice so I can be a better blogger.

I received the link to this post via email subscription to your blog. I did not at all expect this. This is the first time I have read a blog post and laughed really hard. I even got my husband who’s barely interested in blog posts to read this..he was pleasantly surprised by the humour and sarcasm in this post.

I love how you intelligently chose a topic and points that would please comment lovers and of course comment haters:) As a comment lover you certainly have given me good guidance. Thank you.

This post is a perfect example of ‘thinking out of the box’. I am glad to have signed up to your emails and the blog tips are helping me work in a systematic way on my blog which is down for maintenance at the moment.

Thank you for an entertaining post Kevin. Looking forward for more. Off to share 🙂
Wish you a great week

Fantastic job. The most entertaining yet informative post I have read. I am still laughing as I am typing this comment. I’ll book mark this post and refer to it when I need a good laugh.

I have to have to agree with you in that having to sign into Facebook or Disqus to leave a comment is not user friendly and flat out annoying.

The easier you make it for your audience to connect with you via comments the more likely they are to leave them and interact with you. Provided your content is rock star caliber – like this post. Plus responding to every comment is one little thing that goes a long way in separating yourself from everyone else.

You’ve got a great sense of humour, Kevin.
I cannot get over how difficult it is to leave comments on other sites. Here’s a few more ideas for your followup post.
1) Where popups appear several times while trying to read through a blog.
2) Getting stuck inside a popup. I’m already on your ‘list’.
3) There’s no spot for comments.
4) The comments were closed after a week.
The way you welcome comments, encourage discussions and treat your guest bloggers, Kevin is welcomed by your readers. Even if you dislike our comments. 🙂 ~Keri

Lots of great tips I figured out over time. The number one thing that has brought me the most readers that actually read (and not skim) over time is commenting on related blogs with quality comments. Even old articles bring them in.

Social media helps support people who want to get notice by Twitter or whatever but has drawn fewer new readers than comments.

Had not thought about the obvious full name though. Have just used my first name to be “friendly” 😉 Thanks.

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